


Travelers

by tonystarking



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Post Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-15
Packaged: 2018-04-20 23:25:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4806155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tonystarking/pseuds/tonystarking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lavellan sometimes came awake from dreams in which her lover watched her sadly from across an endless distance. If they were more than simple dreams, she could not say, for every time she reached for him, he vanished into nothing. Still she searched, and dreamed, and waited, for a way to change the Dread Wolf's heart. As she aged, she found she could sit with him in dreams, never reaching, never asking. But peace. Peace as she aged and became an old woman, peace as she waited for the Dread Wolf, peace for all elves until she took her dying breath, and once again found the Dread Wolf as she had left him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. MANON

They had been walking for weeks since Sowen did not want to pass through the mountains until absolutely necessary. And then the two of them had stolen what they could to keep themselves warm--blankets and thick cloaks and gloves--and bundled up even if it was a pleasantly warm spring. As usual, Sowen was too preoccupied with what could be as opposed to what was.

Sowen assured them they were making good time, that their supplies wouldn’t run out before they reached the Keep. They had walked North alongside Lake Calenhad until they came upon New Haven. Sowen wouldn’t let him go into town--she only went in to “borrow” things, but Manon knew what that meant. Even if Sowen tried to leave something of her own in return, something she didn’t need, it wasn’t the same as buying.

It only took them three days on sore feet to find the Keep, and it was everything and nothing like Manon imagined. He and Sowen had worked for a Jarl--”worked” was what Sowen called it, but Manon knew it wasn’t real employment--so they knew a castle when they saw one. This Keep wasn’t like the old one at all. Even though it had been occupied for the past fifty years or so, the cold stone face radiated no welcome, and Manon saw no guards or servants on the battlements.

“This is it?” Manon asked skeptically. His big sister, taller than him by a head and a half, ruffled his hair as if he were still a child. At eight years old, he was far past finding the gesture affectionate, and he smoothed his hair down indignantly.

“This has to be it,” Sowen said. And then, stronger, “Yes, of course this is it.” Manon knew she wasn’t as confident as she pretended to be, especially when he heard her praying to the old gods beneath her breath. Manon wondered why she bothered praying if coming here to this Keep proved just how little they believed in the Elvhen “gods.” Habit, he guessed.

It wasn’t until they stepped on the long stone bridge that led to the Keep’s door that Manon caught sight of another. It was a woman, her pointed ears visible as she came rushing towards them. She was bare-faced--no vallaslin--just like him and Sowen. City elf? he wondered. Or one of the Witch’s recruits?

The woman and Sowen chatted, but Manon instead took in the walls of the Keep. The stones were thick and sturdy, but left ample room for curious fingers and toes. He reckoned he could climb the wall of the Keep in an hour--two, tops.

“Manon!” Sowen snapped at him. She was already walking through the gate, waving to him frantically. “Come on, we must meet the Keeper.”

“The Witch!” Manon smirked as he ran to his sister, and he could see the shock on the other elf woman’s face and the embarrassment on his sister’s.

“Don’t call her that, Manon!” Sowen said in a harsh whisper. “You must show her respect. We’re going to live here with them--if she allows it.” She added the last bit quickly.

The woman, who introduced herself as Ilythiel, gestured to several things upon their entrance to the Keep. They spotted other workers, all bare-faced elves, planting in rows of tilled ground. “While the Keep has plenty of self-sustainable resources, we also send hunters into the surrounding woods for meat. A barn, just down those stairs there, houses several animals, halla and horses among them,” Ilythiel explained.

“I want to see a halla!” Manon exclaimed.

“Perhaps after you meet the Keeper,” Ilythiel said with a smile. To Sowen, she said, “We still have plenty of rooms available. Your brother can have his own room if he wants, or the two of you can share.”

“I want my own room!” Manon exclaimed at the same time that Sowen said, “Sharing will be preferable.” Manon pouted at her. But still, only two of them in one room? He and Sowen had been packed in with other elven servants in cramped quarters at their previous master’s house. Having a room just to share with Sowen would leave so much space that he could perhaps have a bed of his own. Maybe even some toys of his own, and Sowen wouldn’t gripe and complain that they were taking up too much space.

Ilythiel led them up stone steps in the middle of the courtyard to two flung-open wooden doors. The interior was a large antechamber filled with soft light. Rows of tables were set up along the walls, and a large window at the back had the symbol of an eye on a sword, just where the hilt met the blade.

Again, Manon felt that this place was nothing like the castle where he had grown up. It radiated a comfort that had even silenced Sowen’s quick breathing. “Everybody lives here? Together?” Manon asked.

Ilythiel nodded. “There are many rooms all over the Keep. At one point, this place housed the previous Inquisition and all its soldiers.”

“Are you Dalish?” Manon asked. Sowen hushed him, but Ilythiel smiled good-naturedly.

“Yes, I am. But that doesn’t matter anymore,” Ilythiel answered.

“We’re from the city in Ferelden where--”

“Manon.” Sowen’s tone was harsher, like a bark. Manon sighed and rubbed his foot into the stone beneath him.

Without looking up, Manon asked, “Did the Wit--did the Keeper take your vallaslin away?”

Sowen’s face was practically white, but again, Ilythiel didn’t seem to mind the question. “She did,” the once-Dalish elf responded. “And now we are all free.”

Towards the back of the room, a wooden door creaked open. An old woman slipped through, her back slightly hunched. Her hair was silver from age--what color it had been before, Manon didn’t know. Her face was creased with wrinkles, and she wore a long, flowing robe that looked nothing like a Keeper’s robe and more like pajamas.

“Auntie, did we wake you up?” Manon asked.

This time Ilythiel balked, straightening her back and looking between Manon and the old woman. But the old woman only took them in, her eyes somehow sharp despite her age, and laughed at him.

“Sometimes it’s hard to sleep at night. Dreams, you know, can so often make sleep impossible,” she answered.

“I sometimes have nightmares, too,” Manon admitted.

The old woman nodded conspiratorially and leaned closer to the boy. “The dreams that make you want to sleep forever are even more dangerous.”

“These two just arrived, Keeper,” Ilythiel said.

And that’s when Manon realized who he had been looking at. He immediately felt disappointed. This was the Witch of Skyhold? The one they whispered was the incarnation of Mythal? An old woman who didn’t look like she had an ounce of magic in her withered body?

“Thank you, Ilythiel. If you would, linger so that you can show them to their new chambers after we speak,” the Keeper said.

Ilythiel didn’t bow, just nodded and went to take her position at the back of the room.

“What’s wrong, Carrot?” the Keeper asked.

Manon reached up to his flaming orange hair and scowled. “I hate that name,” he said.

“Then let’s not use it again,” said the Keeper.

“Um…” Sowen knit her fingers together in front of her, clearly unsure of how to begin. “Savhalla. I am… Sowen, and this is… Manon, my little brother.”

“How old are you two?” the Keeper asked, looking them over with scrutiny. When her eyes fell on Manon, he puffed up his chest.

“Eight and thirteen, hahren.” Sowen tried--and failed--to meet the Keeper’s eyes. Was Sowen really so scared of her, Manon wondered. She seemed like a harmless old lady to him.

“You are, of course, welcome here, da’len,” the Keeper responded. “We welcome all Elvhen here, regardless of where they came from. Have you any who will come after you?”

“Come after…” Sowen repeated before dawning hit her. “No! No, I shouldn’t think so. We have no family, and our master… He does not know where we have gone.”

“Regardless,” the Keeper said, “He will never have you back. Not now that you’re here. We keep our own.”

Sowen let out a sigh of relief, as if she had been worried the Keeper would send them away. Manon didn’t think the old lady seemed mean enough for that--or scary at all, regardless of what tales he heard others mention about the Witch of Skyhold who could rip vallaslin off the faces of the Dalish.

“I suspect you’re tired, hungry, sore, and in want of a good bath,” the Keeper said with a smile.

Sowen smiled for the first time since they had left their master’s house. “Yes, we would greatly appreciate it, Keeper.”

“For the next week, I want the two of you to rest here. After you recover from your journey, we will find what work suits you, for we must all work together in order to live here.” The Keeper nodded for emphasis.

“That won’t be a problem, hahren. I can cook and clean, and Manon has been able to climb and clean the steepest of walls and windows.” Sowen looked at Manon, and there was pain in her eyes. Manon didn’t understand it, but the Keeper looked at him sadly, too.

Why were they looking at him like that?

Manon huffed. “Can I see your magic arm?” he asked.

“Manon!” his sister roared.

But again the Keeper laughed. “Oh my,” she said, as if he had been commenting on the color of the sky and nothing more. “Perhaps one day you shall if you decide to make your home here,” she said.

“Promise?” Manon asked, and he wasn’t sure if he was asking whether he could see her magic or if he would be able to keep this place as his home.

“Promise,” the Keeper responded, seeming to understand.

Before Sowen could snatch his shoulder, he threw his arms around the Keeper and held her. She lifted her one good arm and placed it on his back, the other arm--the magic one--just a stump in a billowing sleeve.

“Thank you, Keeper,” Manon said, and he made sure to wipe his face on her robe so that when he pulled away, the girls wouldn’t see his tears.

“You’re quite welcome, Manon,” the Keeper said. “Now go explore your new home.”


	2. ABELAS

_She emerges from the Well, dizzy and grasping for her companion’s hand in order to steady herself. The sunlight gleams on her hair, her vallaslin mingling with the shadows on her cheeks and forehead under the copse of trees. She looks at him, and he feels angry--_

No, that’s not right.

_He feels a yearning. There’s the slightest tug at her lips that pulls them down, but it’s not quite a frown. It’s pity--not the self-deprecating kind that digs into his skin beneath her gaze--but an understanding that passes between them, a kinship._

_Mythal--_

That’s not who she is.

That’s never who she was.

And yet… _and yet…_

\---

Abelas woke from his sleep and looked around him. It took him a moment before the dreams receded and he realized he was in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar inn in an unfamiliar city. This was not his resting place--or even a place he found true rest.

In the past fifty years, he had seen so much. The cities of Ferelden during their cold, harsh winter. The Free Marches with its desolate plains and mountains. Bright Antiva and its even brighter culture. The sunny Rivain where the coast smelled of salt and hope. Even Tevinter, though it was a place he felt he could not linger, like a shadow was reaching its claws towards him and promising _soon, soon…_ He had not lingered there for more than a fortnight.

And out of everything he saw, nothing brought him peace. Nothing stopped the dreams from finding him at night, twisted and changed from their form during his long rest protecting the Vir’abelasan. It was not the kindness of Mythal he saw, not the protecting mother holding him in her embrace, but the figure of justice with her dragon’s wings stretched back and her hand raised, ready to smite.

All because of the woman who drank of the Vir’abelasan.

Abelas knew the truth. Mythal had not been killed by Fen’harel, as many would believe; but Mythal had also not taken part in the Dread Wolf’s rebellion, the removal of vallaslin, the freeing of the ones he called _slaves_. So to hear that the one who had drank from the Well of Sorrows had come to partake in these very same traditions… This, Abelas could not bear.

He brushed his fingers against the green vallaslin across his forehead. His face had aged--sunken, more like. His cheekbones were more prominent, his lips downturned, crow’s feet perched at the corner of his eyes. The youth that he had known as a sentinel was all but erased. But it was not an unbecoming look. He had long-since noticed the looks that women, elven and human alike, gave him in taverns, and his aging had not stopped this. Still, he tried to keep himself wrapped in a cloak, hood around his face, as often as he could.

He was never meant to be an object of fascination. And he was never meant to stay in one place. He could feel that in his bones, so putting down roots… getting to know someone… that was an impossibility. He had spent fifty years wandering, trying to find his purpose after he failed in protecting the Vir’abelesan. But he found nothing. No sign of his purpose.

Yet it all came back to that woman. Lavellan. The woman who haunted his dreams. The Mythal not of love, but of justice.

He pulled his hood over his white hair in order to shadow his face. He still had one last place to visit before he accepted the true rest--and he had never been to Skyhold.

\---

Even wearing a plain cloak and traveling clothes, there was something in his demeanor that created respect. His height, perhaps, or his bearing. The way he straightened his spine and looked at others with a blank calmness. Entering Skyhold had stopped every bit of chatter, squashed every whisper. Elves, devoid of vallaslin, stared at him, wide-eyed and stunned. He could almost hear their thoughts. Who was he, that entered Skyhold without asking?

Finally a woman stepped forward. “Ar vhalla, hahren. I am Ilythiel--and you?” Her words did not shake, though there was fear in her eyes. She had the look of a Dalish woman, and had enough sense not to ask if he was Dalish as well. Comparing him to the Dalish would be like comparing a cat to a mountain lion.

When Abelas spoke, his voice cracked with disuse. “Are you the First?”

Ilythiel gently shook her head. “We don’t have those titles here. This is a place of freedom for all elves.”

Just as Fen’harel would have wanted, Abelas noted. “I will say this plainly for you all to hear then--I am here to see the woman Lavellan.”

An older woman came forward led by a boy with bright orange hair. The boy smiled up at Abelas as if unaffected by the demeanor of those around him, while the woman stopped short and inhaled sharply.

“Abelas, ha falon,” she said.

It had been years. Over fifty years, and yet as soon as Abelas set eyes on her, he knew. Something deep inside her, a part of her, was the last piece of Mythal in this world.

His knees shook beneath him, a pathetic response.

“Inquisitor,” he said.

She recoiled in pain at the word. “Not anymore,” she said quietly.

He flattened his lips. Every question he had come to ask her had dissipated from his mind. His words were smothered in his throat.

As if she could read his mind, she asked, “Why have you come?”

 _To find you,_ the deepest part of him answered. Yet he could not speak. All of the longing, all of the yearning that had driven him throughout Thedas searching for answers had disappeared. For the first time since he had woken in Mythal’s Temple to protect the Vir’abelasan, he felt at peace.

His voice was strong when he finally answered. “I have come to serve you.”

He could hear the tittering voices of the elves around them as they discussed these events, yet Abelas had eyes only for Lavellan--and she seemed to ignore her surroundings as well, as if they were the only two people in the world.

“You have not changed a day,” she said with a sad smile. “Yet I…” She raised her hand to her face, as if to call attention to her age. Yet despite that, she was still beautiful, if only for the soul that rested behind those eyes. “I have no need of servants. Only of those who wish to serve each other.”

Finally, Abelas looked to the other elves. Scared elves with bruises and dirt beneath their nails. Hardworking elves, city and Dalish alike. They were unlike his fellow sentinels, and yet… He could feel their resolve, their need to work as one.

“Then I ask you for this freedom,” Abelas said.

The former Inquisitor laughed gently at him, at a joke that he did not understand. “Oh, Abelas… You are already free--you have only to realize that.”

He took two long steps and closed the distance between them. The woman called Ilythiel twitched as if she might need to protect Lavellan--but he meant her no harm. The orange hair boy at Lavellan’s side shifted, his eyes lighting up as Abelas bent to his knees. The boy seemed more to understand his motives.

“I wish never to be separated from you, and yet…” He turned his face up to her, and her fingers dared to dance across his brow, against the vallaslin that promised him to Mythal--to _her._

“I wish you to be able to _choose_ that, instead of being compelled,” Lavellan answered.

 _And for this, I must rid myself of the vallaslin?_ He asked only with his eyes.

Lavellan pressed her hand to his cheek. _You know that answer,_ she seemed to respond.

He reached up and pulled down his hood, freeing his long white hair. The crowd surged forward, ever so slightly, and the room took in a collective breath.

“Revas ma,” he whispered.

It was silent, yet the air crackled with electricity. Lavellan reached her hand to her other arm and rolled up the billowing sleeve until Abelas could see what she had lost. For a moment he felt anger at whomever had done this to her, then a strange joy that she would dare show him this. From the stump, marred with scar tissue, trickled a green light--gentle at first and then more steady, until it filled an unseen void. The light grew until it was hard to look at, until the green cast grim shadows against the wall a hundred feet high, until Lavellan had grown another arm of pure magic.

Abelas refused to look away, refused to even blink and miss a moment of this gift. She reached her glowing hand to him and let it linger in the space between them. He wondered if it would hurt. And then she touched his forehead.

\---

_She emerges from the Well, one hand against her forehead and the other outstretched for help. He closes the gap between them and seizes her hand. Her eyes glow the blue of magic when she looks up at him, and her smile is radiant._

_Mother. Lover. Friend. All Mythal, the best of her and the last of her. He wants to bow to her, but feels no compulsion to do so. Instead, he simply laces his fingers together with hers and chooses to stand at her side._

\---

Abelas greedily sucked in air as the light faded, as if he had never taken a single breath in his life. Lavellan slouched slightly, her true hand reaching to her forehead. Her stump, plain and magicless, lingered at her side. She reeled on the balls of her feet, and started to fall--

“Keeper!” Ilythiel gasped.

“Auntie!” the redheaded boy cried.

Abelas stood and she fell against his chest. The yearning was gone--completely gone--and yet he wanted to stay with her. He held her tightly until she regained her balance and pulled away from him. He wanted to thank her, but his tongue was thick in his mouth.

Her eyes twinkled in some knowing delight. He could no longer see Mythal there, just the woman he had met as Inquisitor. Her eyes. They held a youthful challenge that Abelas longed to meet.

“You are welcome to stay here--or leave, as you please,” she said. Her voice was lower, and he knew the magic had tired her. “Welcome to Skyhold.”

He seized her hand and felt the warmth against his cold fingers. Lavellan looked surprised by his action, but did not pull away. A faint smile danced across her lips.

“I am happy to be here,” he said, and with all trace of longing, all need to wander completely gone, he knew his words were true.


	3. THE FORMER INQUISITOR

When she walked in the woods, she could never catch a glimpse of her appearance. Whether she was old or young, she didn’t know--but her body didn’t pain her in these spaces beneath the twilight of the moon, filtering through the soft leaves of the forest and casting patchy shadows over her Keeper’s robes. Her full arm swung at her side in an easy gait, while the other arm, cut off from the elbow down, stayed pinned to her side.

But it didn’t hurt. Not like it did in Skyhold when she felt the tickle of fingers that weren’t there. When the Mark that was long gone sent a bolt of fire from the palm of her hand to her shoulder.

Whatever limb she had once had was gone here--and the rest of her body accepted that. The only thing that haunted her here was… _him._

He was her phantom pain, and she was a trespasser in his heart. She could feel him watching her as her fingertips brushed against the moss on trees, as her feet took her straight for the starlit copse where she saw him in her dreams.

Like always, he appeared behind her, just out of sight. She could sense him after all these years of having the same interaction with him again and again. She didn’t turn, knowing it would startle him away, and instead she settled at the edge of the water, in the same place he had kissed her, and slid her toes into the edge of the cold water.

Real. It all felt so real, even if it wasn’t.

When she was young, she had seen herself as a halla, a gentle creature to be loved and left alone. When she led the Inquisition, she had seen herself as a white fox, quick and clever and just out of scrutiny’s reach with her youthful follies. But she knew the truth now. She was a wolf like him, and she always had been. He had seen it in her and loved her for it, and it was only in her old age that she realized how alike they were.

And yet different. The black wolf at her back twisted with the shadows, and still she did not turn. She had told him long ago that she would never give up her world to him, never give up on the Elvhen people--and she hadn’t. As the Inquisition faded into history and legend, she opened Skyhold’s doors to all that came and found that she could leave her mark on others by removing marks altogether.

A rebel. A breaker of promises. Truly, she was like him.

Yet he had not come for her and hers, as he had promised.

In these nightly walks, she longed to turn and ask him. Many times she had asked him similar questions, her voice echoing through the forest as the wolf looked at her from afar, a sort of humanity in his eyes that she didn’t understand. Did he feel bad for her? Or did he feel bad for himself?

Long ago, she had asked him so many questions, one tumbling from her lips after another. Now she longed to ask him only one. _Why?_ That was perhaps how she knew her age the most. After fifty years of ruminating on it all, she had accepted she’d never get an answer to that burning question, that she’d probably die before she saw his work accomplished. So she didn’t bother asking anymore, not in these dreams, and not in the waking world.

Instead she waited, biding her time until the wolf drew closer to her back, and when he finally stepped into her vision, just at the corner of her eye, she would cast her eyes heavenwards to the shimmering night sky filled with green rifts and smile.

“Ar lath ma vhenan,” she would say, every single night, and then she would wake.

\---

“Lethellan.” Abelas’ voice was soft but enough to stir her further. He was right at her side when she reached out for help sitting up in her bed.

“How are the others?” she asked, her throat rasping as she felt the familiar pressure settle on her lungs.

Abelas frowned. “You are weak and weary, yet you ask after the others each time.”

The woman formerly known as the Inquisitor waved her hand through the air. “If I’m sick, I’m sick. If I die, I die.” Abelas flinched at her harsh words. “You know as well as I do that Skyhold will be fine when we old ones shuffle off into whatever awaits us.” And she smiled, because she knew that, despite the fact that he had lived long before her, Abelas would survive her still. Whatever had kept him as a sentinel still seemed to have some affect on his aging--or perhaps she just imagined that since she had aged so poorly.

Abelas had asked her one night if the Mark had left any impact on the rest of her body, other than the magic she could summon with her missing arm. She had denied it at the time, but perhaps… just perhaps this old body knew it was her time, had burned quickly like a flame in the darkness, sucking out all the oxygen until… she died younger than most.

The Mark had burned years of her life alive, and now she was a candle at the end of its wick.

“How long was I asleep?” she dared to ask.

“Five days,” he whispered.

She closed her eyes, refusing to let him see the disappointment in herself written there. She was sleeping more and more, losing herself to the weakness in her body, to the pain in her chest, to the aching of her back and feet, to the screaming of the arm that was no longer there.

“I could call for a healer--”

But she cut him off with a stern glance. He didn’t back down, so she patted his forearm. “Lethallin, I thank you for your help, but you know that when it is my time, nothing will stop me from going.” He merely shook his head. “And then you’ll take care of this place after me.”

The slightest twinge in his eyebrows let her know he still hated this subject, but she had made him promise after his third month here that he would succeed her. For years of his life, he had seen himself as other, as something not Elvhen in the way that she was, in the way the others here were. But the more he worked alongside them gardening and hunting, the more he saw--that was the beauty of freedom--that they were all equal, all suffering just the same. In a way, he had grown to love them as she had.

If only Solas had been able to see the same…

“Do you think it’s soon, lethallan?” Abelas asked.

Already, her attention was fading as the dream pulled at her edges, its greedy fingers weaving into her aged silver hair.

“Someone once told me that dreams are the closest we ever get to the Fade,” she said.

“Lethallan?” Abelas asked. She looked at him, but he was just a blurry shape. His mouth moved, but she heard no sound. He looked frantic, but she didn’t know why. There was nothing to be scared off where she was going.

 _Yes,_ she wanted to tell him. _I’ll die soon._

\---

When she woke again, her room was quiet and dark. Abelas wasn’t with her, which was strange, as he was always there when she woke--either with Ilythiel or Manon or alone. But now she was alone, and she hadn’t actually felt loneliness in years.

She had almost _forgotten_ that feeling.

The pain was gone now, and she wondered if Abelas had disobeyed her request and sent for a healer. She wouldn’t put it past him to eke out a few more months with her as the supposed leader of Skyhold while he was the only one who had the strength to oversee things. Perhaps he never realized she was Keeper in name alone.

She shifted to the side of the bed and stood, and for once, her back didn’t protest. The arm that was no longer there didn’t flare like a hearth fire. She breathed a sigh of relief at that, and found her lungs didn’t gargle with its usual fluid.

Healed? In some ways, just so.

The doors to her room were flung open, and the full moon’s light bathed over her skin, making her glow like a silver Chantry goddess. She started to walk to the balcony where she had watched so many sunrises and sunsets--but stopped short when she noticed the mirror in the corner of the room.

It had been years since she had seen an eluvian, and yet she would know one anywhere. She could draw them with her eyes closed. But never had there been an eluvian in her personal chambers.

She looked behind her, back to the bed, and saw-- _Creators._

There was an old woman lying in that bed, wrinkled and withered. She pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. She understood at once, but couldn’t bring herself to bridge the gap between her and--what?--her own body?

Instead, she stepped towards the eluvian. The woman she saw there was the woman she was remembered as--youthful, strong, with eyes that could cut stone. The Inquisitor. Albeit missing one piece. She wore a white shift, flowing but revealing in the stark light of the moon. She could make out every curve of her youthful body, all the ones she had missed as an old woman. She laughed, and then jumped at the sound. It was too quiet to disturb this peace.

The mirror glowed, and yet she didn’t feel fear or even apprehension. It was like a part of her knew this would happen, so all she felt was acceptance. A hand appeared from the mirror first, and then a body, followed by a face so familiar, she wondered how she had forgotten some of it smallest details--the curve of his brow, the small scar on his forehead.

“Solas,” she whispered.

“Ma vhenan.” Words from him that she so longed to hear.

But she dared not close the distance between them, and after a moment of silence, he furrowed his brow.

“You never came back,” she said.

He shook his head sadly, slowly. “No, but I watched you. All these years, I’ve watched you--and I’ve seen.” He gestured to the stone around them, to Skyhold itself. “This place… I have seen what you have created, so like my place of refuge long ago. I have seen the people and their love for you and their happiness.”

She smiled, oddly proud of herself. “I took a little inspiration from you--from the you that would not destroy an entire world.”

He looked at the ground, the guilt dragging his shoulders down. “I was… wrong, vhenan.”

“I know.”

He tentatively met her gaze. “You can live for a thousand years and still find ways you are wrong.”

She snorted. “I’ve found many ways I was wrong in only seventy.”

He smiled, and it was like the rising sun. She smiled in return, and then slowly, with fear, the smiles faded, and they fell back into the enveloping silence.

“I have changed, vhenan,” she said. “I have become an old woman. I… I actually think I’m dead.”

Solas shook his head. “No, vhenan.” He dared to hold out his hand, an offering, his long, smooth fingers beckoning to her in a way perhaps even he didn’t understand. “You are merely changing.”

Her hand sought out his, but flinched at his words. She stopped short of grasping him. “Into what?”

“After everything you’ve done, after all that you’ve accomplished, would it not be fitting for you to live forever?” he asked.

It was like food to a starving man. But she pushed it away with a shake of her head.

“I don’t want to be immortal. I don’t want… whatever this is.”

Solas’ lips turned slightly downward. “Those who remember you, they are what make you. It is not choice. It is not for me to offer.” He bridged the space between them, his fingers brushing against the back of her hand. “You are immortal, for you are _remembered._ ”

 _Like me,_ his face seemed to say almost sadly.

Her hand tingled at his touch, and she turned the palm upward, allowing the gentle caress to stroke her wrist, her palm, the length of her fingers. Then, like a wolf to prey, she snatched his hand before it could escape, and wound her fingers through his.

“So this is how you make a god,” she whispered, and leaned towards him.

“Ar lath ma vhenan,” he whispered, just before their lips touched.


	4. MANON - TWENTY YEARS LATER

When he was a boy, he had seen a ghost. The night of the Inquisitor’s death--for he learned as he aged that she was the Inquisitor and would be until another was chosen--he had seen the glimmer of a female form walking through the halls with eyes fixed on something he couldn’t see. She glowed like she was full of moonlight, her hair floating in the air as if it were water, stars shining on her brow instead of vallaslin.

“Auntie,” he had whispered, rubbing at his eyes. He didn’t know why he called the ghost that. The Keeper was upstairs, dying in her bed.

The ghost had turned to him and pressed a finger against her lips. She nodded at him, as if trying to tell him something, but she had no voice with which to speak. He wanted to cry for Sowen, for Ilythiel, for Abelas, for his new friend Soliana--but he was struck mute by the presence.

Her form had shifted when he blinked. Now the ghost was a white wolf with soft fur and keen golden eyes. He watched as the wolf turned and loped down the hallway, joining another wolf, a darker wolf, with several red eyes like rubies set in the darkness. He feared this second wolf, but not the white one. She seemed to calm the beast at her side, and then both of them were gone.

Manon had instantly left his bed and crawled next to his sister, Sowen. She didn’t wake fully, just enough to notice him. “Manon, what do you want?” Her tongue sounded thick in her mouth with sleep.

“I’m scared,” Manon had admitted. “I just want to stay here with you.”

Sowen had let out a small sigh of annoyance, but did not kick him out of the bed. They had grown accustomed to sleeping alone during their two years at Skyhold, but Manon was so afraid that what he had seen was an omen of his own death that he couldn’t bear to face it alone.

“I love you,” he had whispered to his sister, just in case the night was his last.

\---

It wasn’t, of course. He had that night, and many nights more. Nights that were good, like his wedding night with Soliana, and nights that were bad, like when he gripped Abelas’ hand tightly and watched the ancient elf take his last breath.

And then there were the many days between, filled with cleaning, then hunting, then managing trades with nearby villages, then leading… How he had gone from Carrot to the Keeper of Skyhold was little more than luck and determination. The people seemed to like him and respect him, and he even met troubles with good humor and a smile. But that wasn’t enough to make him leader, not truly… 

It was strange, how the magic could jump from one body to another. At least, that’s what Sowen thought was happening. After the Inquisitor’s death, Abelas had been distraught to find that he could remove vallaslin and had been named Keeper. And almost as if someone had instructed him, he took Manon under his wing to teach him how to lead, and most of all, how to be a good man. When he passed, Manon felt a fire race up his left arm unlike anything he had felt before. Sure enough, when new elves required their vallaslin removed, the boy who had never been a mage, the boy who was nothing more than a city elf, could perform that service.

He thought about shaving his head, looking more like an ascetic scholar. But in the end, he kept his orange hair and pretended to be hurt when the little children called him “Keeper Carrot.”

Skyhold had survived under the Inquisitor’s watchful gaze. It had grown under Abelas’ care. But with Manon, it flourished. Trade was established with the nearby town of New Haven, and caravans of goods often left Skyhold for markets beyond. The population had grown and filled every room in Skyhold, which so often led to elves finding their calling beyond its walls. He saw elves come and go, some to places unknown, some to join the Wardens, and others still to the Seekers. And though Manon and the others missed them, he knew it was time for them to stretch their wings, find other lands, and soar.

How else would elves retake their land, without a stable and growing population?

Watching all the little children playing outside, he realized just how much this place had changed. He had few companions at his age when he had come to Skyhold with Sowen, and now they were grown and having children of their own… He smiled at his own son, pretending to be a golem fighting darkspawn.

But there was one child, a teen, who watched as if she didn’t belong. Her nose was usually in a book in the library, so he found it odd when she was outside, sitting in the garden. She had friends--he had seen her with other girls her age--but today she looked uninterested in everything except the corner of the garden.

“Dalen, are you well?” he asked. “May I sit?”

“Of course, hahren.” Her voice was soft as he settled at her side.

“Is there something bothering you, dalen?” Manon asked.

Raella let out a sigh that belonged to someone twice her age. “No, hahren.” Her voice said otherwise.

Manon opened his mouth to speak, but something in the corner of his eye caught his attention. There in the corner of the garden, where Raella was looking, was the white wolf that Manon had seen years ago.

“Raella, can you… can you see that?”

Her eyes widened, and she looked at him quickly before her eyes darted back to the wolf, as if she were afraid to lose track of it. “I have for days, hahren.”

The wolf watched them, then turned and disappeared into the brush.

“She left,” Raella said. “Was it because of you? Is she dangerous?” The girl’s words betrayed her fear.

“She just wanted to say hello. No worries, dalen.” Manon tried for a moment and then simply said, “She’s gone to find her companion.”

Raella nodded as if she understood, as if she, too, had seen the black wolf.

Manon looked back to the place that the wolf had been before, then looked to the curious Raella at his side. For some reason, he remembered the time he had hugged the Inquisitor and cried when she had welcomed him to Skyhold.

“Raella,” he began. “How would you like to train with me?”

Instantly, he could feel it--the gaze that had watched him through his childhood. Auntie, the white wolf, the soul of Mythal, the woman who had become a goddess of Skyhold and its people… He merely smiled so that she could see how happy he was.

Smiled until Raella smiled back at him, and the two sat in the garden talking of the future.


End file.
